Twisted Refrain
by Aspen Snow
Summary: I'm not like them. It's the only justification Michael has left...


_I'm not like them_

Is what he wants to tell her as she cowers behind the desk. But she sees only the gun, the hint of a tattoo wrapping around his wrist and she trembles.

This first time he dons this criminal persona it doesn't fit too well.

It itches, makes him restless and jumpy, and when it tries to _stick_, it makes him nauseous. He wants to drop the gun, put a hand on her shoulder and tell her everything will be _okay_.

He wants to throw up.

She thinks he is going to kill her.

_8_

_8_

_8_

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_I'm not like them_

Is what he tells himself when he's back in his cell, a bloodied screw in his hand and someone's death smeared across his shirt.

He's _not_ like them. He went to college. He had a real job, a great job. He had success, he had a life. He had it all.

He chose this. And now, with people dead and dying all around him, with the chaos the frenzy the anger the _heat _he wonders why he ever thought this would be easy.

His confinement is voluntary and he thinks that might make him more sick than them.

_8_

_8_

_8_

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_I'm not like them_

Is what he wants to tell her when her fingers ghost across his face, mending and fixing.

Her voice is a dark, thick whisper that tells him he will die in here. He knows she is trying to hide the concern, because she is the Doctor, she is the pure one, the innocent one who isn't supposed to care about prisoners like him.

He wants to tell her he's worth it. He wants to say her concern isn't wasted on him because he's not like them. He's innocent too.

He shifts under her hands and she flinches. He wants to tell her she doesn't have to fear him.

He's not a _real _prisoner. His crime was a charade, fake.

But then he remembers a bank and praying eyes, trembling hands and _fear_ and thinks maybe it wasn't all so fake after all.

He wants to throw up.

8

8

8

8

_I'm not like them_

Is how he justifies killing a man. He's the good guy, they're the bad guy.

It's morbidly easy to take a man's life and he wonders what right he has to take something like _that_ away from a person.

He contemplates asking his brother if he will always remember the feel of a heart running out of beats.

But then he's being shot at and running for his life and he's sure he doesn't want to know.

_8_

_8_

_8_

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_I'm not like them_

Is why so many prisoners instinctually hate him. Because they are all here losing time.

Not him though, he's had a plan, a mission, a goal since the beginning. All his minutes are busy, they're being used.

He has no idle time to think about what he is missing because his whole life is here and it's dying.

He's running out of time and they have too much.

They're all dead wasting time and he's so alive searching for more.

_8_

_8_

_8_

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_I'm not like them_

Is what he tells himself when he's got his hands on her waist, her hair on his arm, her breath in his _air_.

He wants to taste her but he doesn't. Because the stench, the stink, the heat hasn't stuck to him yet.

He still has the _choice_.

_8_

_8_

_8_

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_I'm not like them_

Is what he tells the broken and bleeding guard. He thinks maybe the guard is the first one to actually _believe_ him.

But then he turns his back on him, leaves him with a man hungry for retribution and flesh, subconsciously deciding that this man's life is worth less than _hers_.

If he really wasn't like them he would save them both. But he doesn't. Because in prison there are no heroes, so he doesn't even try.

And it breaks him, a little, when he watches the guard die.

_8_

_8_

_8_

_8 _

_I'm not like them_

Is what he tells his brother in a shadowed and stained glass church.

_I'm not like you_ is the implication that hangs in the air and he thinks that is why, maybe, his brother pulls himself tighter, rigid.

_I will save you_ is what he whispers in his brother's ear as he bows his head in the pew behind him, clasps his hands and pretends to pray.

His brother laughs, it's short and hard and bitter. He shuffles away then in chained restraints too tight to let him walk like a man.

He never knew they could take so much away from a person in prison.

He wasn't prepared for all _this_.

_8_

_8_

_8_

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_I'm not like them_

Is the mark the prison burns into him, this distinction that he will always, always have to make.


End file.
